Live: US-Ukraine draft could lay groundwork for future peace deal, Putin says

Ukraine to meet US this week to discuss formula for peace, Zelensky says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian and US delegations are to meet this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to bring peace and provide security guarantees for Kyiv.

“Our team, together with American representatives, will meet at the end of this week to continue to bring closer the points we have as a result of (talks in) Geneva in a form that will lead us on the path to peace and security guarantees,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

“There will be a meeting of delegations. The Ukrainian delegation will be well prepared and focused on meaningful work.”

Zelenskiy said there would be further talks next week involving both delegations and himself, though he provided no details.

“Next week there will be important talks not with our delegation, but also including me,” he said. “And we are preparing firm ground for such talks. Ukraine will stand firmly its feet. It will always be standing.”

Zelensky’s top aide says Ukraine won’t give up land to Russia, the Atlantic reports

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will not agree to give up land to Russia in exchange for peace, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak told US magazine the Atlantic in an interview.

“As long as Zelenskiy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” Yermak said.

Jordan tells Russia to stop recruiting its citizens after two killed

Jordan asked Russia to stop recruiting its citizens for its armed forces after two of them were killed fighting for Moscow.

In a statement, the foreign ministry called the recruitment “a violation of Jordanian law and international law” that “exposes citizens to serious danger”.

Spokesman for the ministry Fuad al-Majali called on Jordanians “to report any attempts to recruit them into the Russian army” and warned of both legal risks and the danger of death.

The ministry, he said, “has requested the Russian authorities to stop recruiting Jordanians and to terminate the service of any Jordanian citizens already enlisted”.

It’s unknown how many Jordanians may have been recruited, but hundreds live in Russia and more than 20,000 have studied in the countries of the former Soviet Union, according to unofficial data.

Judo brings Russian athletes in from the cold despite ongoing war

The International Judo Federation on Thursday restored Russia’s right to compete under its flag,. Moscow celebrated the move while Ukraine deemed it a betrayal of peace as the war continues.

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NATO chief hails Trump efforts to end fighting in Ukraine

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

“There is tremendous renewed energy around the peace process, and for that I want to commend US President Trump,” Rutte told reporters during a visit to Iceland where he met with Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir.

Putin’s ‘real intention’ on peace to become clear in weeks, Italy says

Italy’s defence minister said on Thursday that it will become clear in the next weeks if Russian President Vladimir Putin has any interest in making peace with Ukraine, and that the war was costing Russia dearly, despite its increase in defence spending.

Guido Crosetto, a co-founder of right-wing premier Giorgia Meloni’s ruling party, also said European countries should not ignore the importance of Russia, as well as Ukraine, moving away from a war economy to normal activity once the conflict ends.

“I don’t know what Putin has in mind,” Crosetto told reporters at the Italian embassy in Paris after meeting his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin.

“We hope that this time Russia will truly want to sit down at the table and negotiate. Looking at what’s happening, I’m not optimistic,” he said, noting that Russia was still recruiting troops and boosting defence investment.

But he added: “Russia is paying for this war domestically, with a decline in its GDP, its wealth.”

“We’ll see in the coming weeks – it won’t take long to understand – whether Putin has a real intention” to make peace, he said.

US, Ukrainian delegations to resume work on peace plan, Kyiv says

Ukrainian and US officials will continue work on a US-backed peace plan, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said on Thursday.

“At the end of this week, the joint work of the Ukrainian and American delegations will continue to develop the result achieved in Geneva,” Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“It is important not to lose productivity and to work quickly.”

Top Ukrainian general says Kyiv’s forces blocking new Russian assaults in Pokrovsk

Ukrainian troops were blocking attempts by Russian forces to stage new assaults on the embattled eastern cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, Kyiv’s top general said on Thursday.

In a statement on Facebook, Oleksandr Syrskyi added that Russia had been forced to deploy reserve forces for its operations there.

Putin says signing documents with ‘illegitimate’ Ukrainian leadership senseless

Russian President Putin called the Ukrainian leadership “illegitimate” and said it was senseless to sign any documents with them.

He said the Kyiv leadership lost legitimacy after refusing to hold elections when President Volodymyr Zelensky’s elected term expired. Kyiv says it cannot hold elections while under martial law and defending its territory against Russia.

Ukraine will need security guarantees after any peace deal, Germany’s Merz says

Even after a peace agreement, Ukraine will need strong armed forces and security guarantees and no territorial concessions should be forced on the country, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.

“We view the efforts of the US government to find a solution here very positively. However, we also say that the security interests of Europeans and also the security interests of Ukraine must be safeguarded,” Merz said at a press conference with his Estonian counterpart.

Russia prepares retaliatory measures over threat to its frozen assets, Putin says

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is preparing a package of retaliatory measures in response to potential seizures of Russian assets in Europe.

He warned that any move to confiscate Russian assets would be “a theft of property” and would have a negative impact on the global financial system.

Putin says Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine by force unless Kyiv withdraws

President Vladimir Putin said on that once Ukrainian troops withdraw from their positions in key areas, then the fighting will stop, but that if they do not then Russian forces will achieve their objectives by force.

He added that the pace of Russia’s advance in all directions was “noticeably increasing.”

Putin says US-Ukraine text could form basis future peace agreement

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the outlines of a draft peace plan discussed by the United States and Ukraine could become the basis of future agreements to end the conflict.

“In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements,” Putin said, adding that the variant of the plan discussed by the United States and Ukraine in Geneva had been passed to Russia.

Putin said that the United States was taking into account Russia’s position but that some things still need to be discussed.

Putin added that Russia is ready to discuss strategic stability with the US, including issues related to nuclear tests.

Finland arrests man suspected of illegal entry from Russia

Finland’s border guard said Thursday it had apprehended a man suspected of illegally crossing Finland’s eastern border from Russia, which has been closed for two years.

The man was detained in the southeastern border town of Imatra in the afternoon after a search operation involving border guard vehicles, dog patrols and a helicopter. 

The border guard did not disclose the person’s nationality but said it had opened a preliminary investigation into a suspected state border crime. 

Finland shut its 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia in December 2023, as tensions mounted between the two countries over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

France unveils voluntary military service in face of threat from Russia

France will introduce a voluntary military service of 10 months beginning next year, President Emmanuel Macron has said, in the face of what it views as a growing threat posed by Russia.

Almost three decades after France scrapped conscription, the head of state said young adults who wished to could sign up for a 10-month military service.

“A new national service will be introduced, gradually starting next summer,” he said during a speech to troops in Varces-Allieres-et-Risset in southeastern France.

But he said volunteers, mostly aged 18 to 19, would be deployed “only on national soil”.

Russia closes Polish consulate in Siberia in tit-for-tat move

Russia has summoned Poland’s ambassador and announced it will shut Warsaw’s consulate in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in retaliation for Poland closing a Russian consulate over accusations of sabotage.

Russia’s Ukraine offensive has badly damaged ties between Warsaw and Moscow, with Poland becoming a hub for Kyiv-bound Western weapons and taking in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

Warsaw last week closed Russia’s Gdansk consulate after accusing Moscow of orchestrating an act of sabotage on a Polish rail line.

“Curtailing the Russian consular presence in Poland under an absurd pretext is a blatantly hostile and unjustified move by the Polish leadership,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

As a “retaliation measure”, Poland’s ambassador was informed of Moscow’s decision to “withdraw its consent for the functioning of the Polish Consulate General in Irkutsk as of December 30, 2025”.

Russian athletes free to compete in judo ‘under national flag’

Russian athletes are free to compete “under their national flag”, the International Judo Federation (IJF) has said, lifting the neutral status that had been imposed following the invasion of Ukraine.

“The IJF Executive Committee has therefore voted to permit Russian athletes to compete under their national flag once again, with anthem and insignia in place, beginning with the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam 2025,” the IJF said.

The Russian federation reacted with delight to the “historic decision” with judo being close to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s heart.

“We are happy that international judo has become the first to have taken this historic decision,” the president of the Russian judo federation Sergey Soloveychik said.

Witkoff’s art of the deal – or a selloff?

For more analysis of the fallout from the US envoy’s Kremlin call, take a look at our Debate programme.

Witkoff’s Kremlin call stokes Ukrainian suspicions of Russia bias

The leaked transcript of US envoy Steve Witkoff’s call with a top Putin aid has only escalated such fears – and comforted Kyiv’s long-held suspicions about Witkoff, says FRANCE 24’s Ukraine correspondent Gulliver Cragg.